I have wished, for years - decades, actually - that word processors with the power to edit complex documents arrived with a “BASIC/COMPLEX” switch that’s set to “BASIC” by default. Which would gray the “COMPLEX” features in the interface. In this particular episode of “Things Go Awry”, I could see that I had fallen into a mode where changes were being recorded alongside the original. I was on a short deadline. I tried searching the Help files - but had no idea what to use for search terms. After some failed searches, I gave up and retyped what I had typed the hour before. Missed the deadline. In the end, most [but not all] was well.
I stopped briefly to consider how many times I’ve been roadblocked, over the years, by stumbling into booby trap features like this one. Or by needing a feature on a word processor that’s new to me, but unable to find it in the forest of available features. The stage I’m in, now, with this word processor …